Saturday, August 20, 2011

My Little Corner of the World

I've had several posts in the past where I've talked about all that goes on in Zoe's little corner of the world. Several noteworthy things have happened in the last week that just had to go into the blog.

First, I recently celebrated a birthday that put me into a different age demographic (no, I'm not quite to AARP status yet!) I fear that something in that change of year switched on the "curmudgeon" gene inside me. So please take my reaction to the next two events with that in mind.

One weekday afternoon, a family (mother, father, high school/college age son and daughter) ran up on the patio. Yelling loudly, they proceeded to throw themselves into "planking" positions all over the patio and take pictures. Not only were they being horribly obnoxious (I wondered if anyone in my landlord's office space was in a meeting or on a conference call) but I just don't get the planking fad. If anyone does, please enlighten me. They finally ran out of places to "plank" and left.

On a Thursday afternoon, I saw a young man and woman leaning against the wall on the Union Street level of the patio. I was occupied at the time but out of the corner of my eye, I saw something blue go flying into the landscaping on the patio. After they left, I walked out to see what it was. It was a blue party cup smelling VERY strongly of bourbon. Really? At 2:30 in the afternoon? This is Union Street, not Bourbon Street!

OK, enough with the curmudgeon comments. Earlier this week, I saw groups of people walking around with papers in their hands and manilla folders. Not really an unusual sight as there is a Trustees office just down the street that handles a lot of bankruptcies. But instead of serious looks on their faces, they looked like they were having fun. A group came up to Zoe and told me they were on a Scavenger Hunt and needed a "rubbing" of the letter "Q" for their hunt. The wanted the "Q" from Zoe's sign on the patio but said it was up too high! I said "I have a step ladder in the back!" Problem solved! They got their rubbing of a "Q"! While the one person was taking care of this, the others explained to me what they were doing. The USS Abraham Lincoln (an Aircraft carrier) is being moved from the West Coast to the East Coast for refurbishment. They were all part of the team involved in this (a combination of Navy and civilians) and the scavenger hunt was a team building exercise! Fun for Zoe to be involved in a small way!

And I've had two lovely visits from friends this week! Long time friend Irina stopped in to see me on Thursday and even got me one of my beloved Starbucks iced teas! It was so nice to catch up with her. And my friend/mentor Greer, owner of Duo in Charlottesville (and now Harrisonburg - more on that in a future blog) stopped by to see the store for the first time! Hopefully I've made her proud!